Tag Archives: Sign Abatement

Last Skywatch Post of April 2018 – Osage Prairie Trail

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Last week I took my bicycle up north of Tulsa to the “Osage Prairie Trail” a rails to trail project  that starts in north Tulsa and goes to Skiatook, way out in the country. I started in Sperry and went about five miles north to Sperry. The trail is deluxe, asphalt paved and well maintained.

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I got some geocaching in on the way. How do you like my stylish outfit? I found that garish yellow top at Walmart for about seven bucks. Don’t feel bad if you don’t like it cuz I like it just great! Along with my mismatched socks. Where’s the law that says your socks have to match? There isn’t one, I already checked!

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I love this bridge across Bird Creek.

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I got to Skiatook and everybody in town was taking an exercise class.  I felt like jumping in myself but they were just finishing up. I love community stuff like that. Except community sounds like communism. We don’t like communism here in Oklahoma, so I am glad I didn’t join this communistic exercise program. People need to be in there own homes watching Fox News and checking you know who’s twitter feed. Not out in the sun getting skin cancer and getting to know your possibly leftist, immigrant, non gun owning  neighbors.

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Enough about politcs. How about some cows? These are my wife’s cousin’s herd out in western Oklahoma. I love the calves especially. I always name one of them “Little Brisket.”

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I went riding along the Arkansas River after work earlier this week during a pretty day. I am loving riding my bike this Spring!!

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And it is Azalea season here in Tulsa. Here is a house in midtown that I just love. Look at the blooms, and the windows.

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And I have a volunteer gig with the city of Tulsa picking up “litter on a stick” signs. I’ve picked up 17 so far. Within days of getting trained, me and my fellow 61 volunteers picked up over 500 trash signs off city rights of way. I’m all official now. I have a city ID Badge with my photo on it and some “cop gloves” to help protect from sabotaged signs. (Not yet in Tulsa but apparently in other cities the people who have put out litter on a stick signs have superglued razor blades to the wire frames.” The gloves will come in handy for geocaching also. On my bike ride on the Osage Prairie Trail I went looking for a cache called something like “In the hole” and I found the hole in the tree and as I went to inspect it, a snake slithered out! So as we say in the energy biz, I plugged and abandoned that cache, figuratively. I am just glad that I didn’t stick my hand in there, even though the slithery critter did not appear to be poisonous.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday this week.

Tulsa Sign Abatement Training

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I got up early Saturday morning and attended volunteer training put on the by City of Tulsa for those citizens who want to help the city control temporary signs on city streets. Tulsa has regulations for such signs and they are wanting help for the one city employee who does that. That guy was the one doing the training and he was very engaging during his two hour talk.

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They don’t really want volunteers pulling signs such as these. They may or may not be legal as it is possible that they could have a permit plus there is a due process where business owners can appeal. They want us volunteers solving problems not creating them. So if we have questions we are to take a photo of the sign and send it to the city employee and he will deal with it. We are not engage business owners or individuals, leave that up to city employees.

They also do not want us messing with signs inside neighborhoods. The main emphasis is going to be the “litter on a stick” signs on main thoroughfares not associated with nearby businesses. You have seen those signs advertising lawn mowing, leaf raking, and such. He talked about signs posted near schools advertising “Now hiring students” with no business name or description just a phone number. He said sometimes those are entries into human trafficking for witless teenagers.

He also emphasized discretion, so please don’t pull signs posted by people who have lost pets and other such things. “If in doubt, leave it out” is to be our motto. And he talked about political signs. Close to election time lots of candidates will be putting their little crap signs out on the rights of way and medians. He said we can pull those but we can’t just pull them for candidates we don’t like, we have to pull everybody’s signs.

So anyway the next step is that we pass the background check and get issued city ID’s, reflective vests, gloves,  and then we get to start. So I am king of looking forward to helping clean up our city of “litter on sticks.” In the meantime I am driving Heather crazy as we drive the city streets. I am saying that’s legal, legal, not legal, etc